Re: How to measure NetApp network performance (iSCSI)

Both ways are proving a good starting point for my performance testing - so far the only thing we've really seen is high CPU loads during the days (seems to be related to Snapshots and SnapMirrors running) - but nothing too drastic it seems.

And yes, our filers only have 2 NICs as far as I am aware - and I've since found out that the FAS2020s have rather limited memory too.

Re: How to measure NetApp network performance (iSCSI)

During installation we asked our NetApp partner about this and we were told that it wasn't necessary. Therefore we never enabled it. How important is this??

Well, it certainly "works" without Jumbo's, but our performance tests showed that under full load (2x 1Gb iSCSI - Round Robin MPIO) the difference between a MTU size of 1500 compared to 9000 means 5% - 12% more CPU utilization (Win2k8 Server). You're telling that you have a seperate iSCSI VLAN, so there should be no reason to NOT enable Jumbo's.

Re: How to measure NetApp network performance (iSCSI)

I do quite a bit of work with the 2000s so understand the issues, and am pursuading customers to configure a LACP vif with one or more VLANS running over it, this allows for jumbo frames and flow control to be turned on individually. also make sure wins is turned off for your iscsi vlan, its like sticking a tractor on a motorway; alternatively you can tell the protocols what interfaces you want them to use, or not. Also installing the VSC 2 on Vsphere will help set your MPIO setttings for all your esx hosts which can help.

The 2020 is quite limited on performance and the sales pitch says " upto 68 drives" but to be honest if you get to even half that your hitting the limits on the CPU (single core 32bit ) and is pitched for windows appliactions and file serving. the redeeming feature is you can do a head upgrade to a 2040.